Day 3 – Funeral arrangements

I wrote these entries on 12 March 2002 about looking back on the days that followed my brother’s death. Please read them in day order…

 

 

 

When someone dies suddenly, without warning, you are left with a sense of disbelief. Every time someone coughed, walked down the garden path, called on the telephone, I felt for sure that it was him.

 

Several times I sat bolt upright and said aloud, "That’ll be him".

 

My mother and estranged father and I went to a local church to make funeral arrangements. None of us were religious but my brother was and we wanted to respect that.

 

We met the minister. He asked about music. “We want Pearl Jam – Elderly Woman at a Counter Store, he used to play that on his guitar”.

 

“Open casket?”

 

I said, “No! No-one is to look at him dead. He didn’t believe in the body after death, he thinks he will be in heaven”.

 

“How many people are you expecting?”

 

I said with pride, “My brother was pretty popular, maybe 100 people?”

 

“Hymns?”

 

My parents both agreed, “Morning is Broken” [like the first mourning] but sung by Cat Stevens.

 

“Sermon?”

 

“For Every Season there is a time… and Psalm 40; he used to sing that U2 song didn’t he?

 

The minister pointed out that this hymn, this sermon were usually used for happy occasions, christenings and marriages.

 

We all said, “So?”

 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt”>I went home and wrote his eulogy. I was told that I was not allowed to read it [I might start a scene].

 

My public speaking had made people cry before; this could start a goddamn riot.

 

It was December 1993 and there had been bushfires raging for a full week. The sky, the sun and moon seemed to be a permanent blood red. The air was thick with ash and smoke floating throughout the city, blown in from the country. Under a blood red sky; he loved those lyrics. It was the strangest most surreal thing I had ever seen but it kind of made sense. He would have thought it was a sign from God.

 

He had told me the weekend prior to his death that an angel, a little old lady with white hair and piercing blue eyes had whispered something into his ear, a secret. He wouldn’t tell me what she had said but he was strangely at peace that day.

 

I kept saying the words aloud, “Where have you gone Marty?”

 

Pleading, "WHERE HAVE YOU GONE?"

 

I wrote it down over and over again. In later months, I made many drawings with that title.

 

Marty, I was thinking that I would never see your hair get long after you had spent months growing it.

 

You would never convince me now to learn how to speak in tongues or accept God into my heart.

 

You would never read me one of your poem’s again with your serious, passionate voice.

 

I would never dance with you as my partner at one of those dumb weddings.

 

You would never bum another cigarette off me.

 

I’d never smell old bong water in my mother’s house again.

 

You would never play me a song and say, "Just one more time. Please just listen to it with me one more time?"

 

I would never see you back with Vanessa, or have kids, a job, or a house. We would share no more Christmases, or Birthdays, nor Easters.

 

Dad would never be able to say sorry to you for not talking to you for all of those years,

for not wishing you a Happy 21st.

 

I was thinking, I wish these people would fuck off and leave you and me alone